The August Unmade Snippet

So Unmade is out next month, and I have an event with Maureen Johnson TONIGHT at which an exciting thing might happen. 😉 I hope to see some of you guys there tonight, and I thought as today was a special day it called for the August snippet of Unmade. So soon now, you will all read it, and I will officially have two trilogies out. Like a grown-up writer or something? Maybe!

For those of you wondering if I will ever return to the US after all my UK jaunting this spring and summer, I WILL. In fact, here are a list of places I will be to provide you with a signed Unmade (or a signed any other book. I’ll sign Fifty Shades of Grey. I’ll sign a baby’s face.)

Unmade comes out September 23rd. Monstrous Affections, the anthology with the story in it that you guys maaaaaay have noticed me writing a book-length prequel to hereabouts, comes out September 9th. (This means the next two parts… I know! I’m sorry! I’m a disaster!… of Turn of the Story will be put up before then.) So I figured, go over and have illustrious company and sign everything in sight!

For now, enjoy. Or suffer. Sufjoy. Let’s spend a little time with Ash Lynburn.

She excused herself and went into the parlor, where she expected to find some much-wanted solitude.

Instead she saw Ash, sitting in the deep armchair with his head bowed over the book in his lap. He looked lost in thought.

I wanted to be alone, said Ash.

She was surprised: Ash had always seemed to her like exactly the kind of person who never wanted to be alone, but she could feel how much he meant it. He felt sad, in a heavy way that company could not soothe or pierce. He felt like she did.

“I can go,” Kami offered.

No, said Ash. Stay.

Kami supposed they could be alone together. She went and leaned against the window, opened a book and leafed through it though she felt impatient with reading history books now she’d learned Elinor’s secret. She had already done the research and wanted to get to the action. Kami wanted to be done feeling helpless and not able to do anything she wanted to do.

The fierce restlessness of Ash’s thoughts was infecting hers. Investigating his feelings seemed like putting a hand between the cage bars a tiger was prowling behind.

Kami could hear the sound of the party going on, through the little corridor, through two doors. Eventually the noise died down, the creak of the heavy inn door swinging back and forth becoming the most frequent sound, but the party winding down did nothing to ease the cold knot under her breastbone. Kami shut her book and leaned her head back against the window with a small sigh. She felt the hair at the back of her head stick to the condensation on the glass and stared up at the low, wooden-beamed ceiling for a long moment.

There was a sudden touch at her wrist and Kami dropped the book in her hand. It thumped against the wooden floor and the sound echoed. Ash was standing in front of her, his blue eyes darkened with the feeling she had sensed in him before, the feeling she had shared.

His hand was circling both her wrists. He closed his fingers, bringing her wrists together and over her head in one smooth movement. It brought her body forward, brought it against his. She felt the cool slick glass against the back of her hands at the same time as she felt the warmth of his mouth close over hers. He set his free hand on her hip, and she felt the heat and greed of his fingers sliding over the loose silk of Angela’s black dress. He was pressing her hips against the glass and making her back arch away from it, while his warm lips searched hers.

She was wearing someone else’s clothes, feeling someone else’s feelings. She could feel his rapt intentness, so focused on her that it felt as if it was piercing through her, but the piercing was sweet. She turned her face up, kissing him back as he was kissing her, feeling his fingers clench around her wrists and in the material of the dress. She did not want to feel the way she was feeling any longer, and she did not have to—she could feel other emotions sweeping through her like fire, destroying everything that was hers.

“Kami,” Ash whispered against her mouth, “Don’t you know that I love you? I love you. I’m so in love with you.”